A $10 million gift from Milwaukee philanthropists Sheldon and Marianne Lubar will help the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee establish a center for entrepreneurship in a sleek new building that also will be the official welcome center for prospective students and other campus visitors, the university is set to announce Thursday.

The Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship will be only the second major construction project on the east side campus in nearly 20 years. It is envisioned as a gateway to campus and part of a major transformation. It also is intended to brand entrepreneurship as integral to a UWM education.

The two-story, 28,000-square-foot building at the corner of N. Maryland Ave. and E. Kenwood Blvd. will rise just south of the nearly completed, five-story Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex, which cost about $80 million and is set to open this fall. It will be across N. Maryland Ave. from the aging Student Union. That building is expected to be torn down and replaced in a few years with a $160 million gathering place for students.

Construction costs for the Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship — expected to open in late 2017 or early 2018 — will be covered by $10 million in UW System-wide fund balances that UW System President Ray Cross internally reallocated in March with approval from Board of Regents leadership but without public discussion.

"This is a unique situation," said UW System spokesman Alex Hummel. "UW System stepped up with funding for construction in order to leverage the Lubars' generous $10 million donation to fund the entrepreneurship program."

"We are excited that the first place prospective students visit will include the Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship," UWM Chancellor Mark Mone said. "The spirit of innovation will infuse and inspire their education here."

The current welcome center where campus tours begin is in 1930s-era Vogel Hall on N. Downer Ave., which needs a substantial face-lift, Mone told the Journal Sentinel.

"Welcome centers today are really important," the chancellor said. "They're the first thing you see on a campus."

Ultimately, the center will support the mission of the UW System by helping prepare students to be innovators and entrepreneurs, Cross said.

The Lubars' $10 million gift will endow professorships and support student-related entrepreneurial activities and faculty engagement.

The gift also makes the Lubars the largest donors in UWM history; it is combined with their $10 million gift in 2006 to endow professorships and student scholarships at what is now the Lubar School of Business, cater-cornered across the street from the future Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship.

Sheldon Lubar, 86, is chairman of Lubar & Co., a Milwaukee-based private investment firm he founded more than a half-century ago. He is a UW-Madison alum and has served on many boards and as president of the UW System Board of Regents. Marianne Lubar also has served on several high-profile boards in the community.

Since 1998, the Lubar Family Foundation has given more than $30 million in support of arts, education, community and Jewish organizations.

"Marianne and I have made entrepreneurship a part of our lives for more than 50 years," Sheldon Lubar said in prepared remarks.

Lubar said the center's objective will be to teach and motivate students, as well as businesspeople working in both large and small companies, to take advantage of opportunities that ownership brings.

UWM can be the source of knowledge for both start-ups and scale-ups, Lubar said.

"There's a lot of effort around starting new companies, but scale-up is the sweet spot of helping companies out there grow," said Brian Thompson, president of the UWM Research Foundation. "Mr. Lubar is an entrepreneur. Part of his business model is helping companies grow."

About Karen Herzog

Karen Herzog covers higher education. She also has covered public health and was part of a national award-winning team that took on Milwaukee's infant mortality crisis.